Poems and Songs of Vladimir Vysotsky. Who For What Runs.
Commentary to the song “The Morning Exercise”.
This song calls to mind an old saying: “Cura, ut valeas!” (“Take care that you be well”), and, of course, the story “The handsome huntsman and his kinsfolk” from Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani’s “The Book of Wisdom and Lies” (1894). As the epigraph to it, there can be used the words of Porphyry Ivanov, peace be upon him: “Tempering with cold water has a very great benefit, it is the awakening of the central nervous system.”
The song was performed in the play of the Moscow Academic Theater of Satire “The Last Parade” (1968).
The presented text is adapted from Andrey Kneller’s translation.